OSEP, SSIPs and the Future of Special Education: Practitioner Leadership in an Evolving Federal Landscape

Abstract

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is a division of the United States Department of Education (Ed). OSEP’s mission is to lead the nation’s efforts to improve outcomes for infants, toddlers, children and young adults with disabilities, birth through twenty-one years old. However, a decade ago OSEP recognized a need to place a greater emphasis on student outcome results as compared to procedural compliance. In 2014, the State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP), a comprehensive multi-year plan, was developed as part of OSEP’s Results Driven Accountability (RDA) initiative to improve early intervention and educational services, including special education and related services for children with disabilities.

The SSIP was intended to be a key lever that allowed states to formally focus on system-wide improvement strategies. While each year states have submitted these plans as a part of their annual performance report, because of competing and shifting priorities, OSEP has placed varying levels of focus on supporting implementation of the SSIP, and ongoing staffing capacity issues have negatively impacted OSEP’s ability to assess the fidelity of SSIP implementation.

As a resident, I worked in the Office of the Director (OD) in OSEP examining SSIPs from all sixty states and territories. Additionally, my role involved creating a SSIP advisory group to address critical questions about the effectiveness, sustainability, and scalability of these plans, diving deeply into the data to understand both the successes achieved and the ongoing challenges. With a decade of SSIP data and years of implementation by states, this work offered a rare chance to provide insights into how large-scale educational reforms evolve over time, adapt to emerging needs, and drive lasting change in special education.

This Capstone chronicles my efforts to support OSEP’s desire to examine national SSIP impact as it works toward its mission. My analysis offers recommendations for OSEP to 1) add to the already existing OSEP infrastructure to routinely examine the SSIP and build MSIP State Lead capacity to support states, 2) work collaboratively through effective teaming as a necessary and consistent framework to engage in data improvement cycles to inform decision making and, 3) utilize psychologically safe containers to build and strengthen relationships within shifting political environments to maintain focus on the progress leaders are trying to achieve.